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This article was first published on 5 December 2013.

On the 6th of August 2012,
Algerian online newspapers and social networking sites reported
the rape of a 26 year old Syrian woman who had sought refuge in Oran, having
fled from Homs as a result of the on-going crisis in Syria. Local police and
other national newspapers very quickly denied the story, stating that it was a ‘rumour’.
Generally speaking, rape survivors remain meticulously hidden within the patriarchal
dominant discourse of Algerian society in which gender-related violence is often
denied and is embedded in a culture of disbelief.

The news
was embarrassing and shameful for Oran, a city well-known for its established
welcoming and reputation for hospitality, upheld by its local population.

Despite the 2,100 miles separating Homs from Oran, since
the beginning of the Syrian crisis in July 2012, hundreds of Syrian refugees
have entered the second biggest Algerian city. The UN High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR) claims that more than 2.1 million Syrians
are now hosted in the North African region, placing an unprecedented strain on
communities, infrastructure and services. According to the Algerian Ministry of
the Interior, 12,000 refugees are in Algeria, yet only
400 are registered in Algiers. Local support groups dispute this number, suggesting
the higher total of 20,000. Women and children make up around 80% of this
refugee population. The majority have no means of supporting themselves, having
only the few economic resources which they brought with them in a hurry.

Women’s experiences of being
forced to flee

In the summer of 2012, I was in Algeria conducting
fieldwork for my PhD and went to meet Syrian women in the city of Oran. ‘Wecame from Homs to Algiers first, via
Jordan’,explained a young woman in
La rue Monpat, a relatively poor area,’We
stayed three months there in the camps…I knew a Syrian family here who told me
Oran would be better, people are very open minded and known for their
hospitality’. She showed me an ID card delivered by the Algerian authorities,
which, she said, would be renewed within 90 days.

Another young mother explained how she went to Egypt first
before ending up in Algeria: ‘As you know, in Egypt and Syria there is a war!
And with the recent events in Rabia El Adawiya, I no longer felt safe with my
kids there…Before landing at Houari Boumediene airport I thought to go to
Tunisia first, then I chose your country because it is the most stable in the
region’. When asked whether or not the Algerian authority supported them in any
way, she answered that she relies on the Red Crescent for food and shelter: ‘Syrians
who come to Algeria are helped by the authorities and the Red Crescent on the
condition that they will not speak to anyone, including media, about their
problems, with the threat of being deported from Algeria’, explained an Algerian
activist who prefers to remain anonymous.

Syrian refugees in Algeria

For many Syrian women in Algeria, the
gendered experience of displacement - the need to flee the increase in violence
and discrimination against women which made living conditions unbearable - has
been compounded by the discrimination they now face as women refugees.

Refugee
women need more than shelter and food to meet their basic needs. For instance, the
cost of disposable sanitary products is significantly high, and pregnancy and
post-delivery needs such as breastfeeding also require financial help. Although
access to health care is universal in Algeria, Syrian women lack information
regarding how to call an ambulance, catch a taxi or even learn their
eligibility for health care. According to a young Algerian male volunteer with
Nass Elkhir, ‘a women gave birth in Sophia Square where hundreds of Syrian
women and children arrived in August 2012. We tried to help her but she refused
to go to hospital with us’.

Syrian women also face pervasive stereotypes
and specifically gendered forms of discrimination from the host population.
When asked about how people think Syrian women without resources can survive, a
middle age male joined the conversation to explain, ‘if they are really in need
they can marry our young men who are desperate for a stable life, as “our”
Algerian girls nowadays have become more and more demanding’.The proposition of such ‘marriages of
enjoyment’ is something not uncommon to women the world over who find
themselves in a vulnerable position. Often framed as a means of protecting the
honour of women who are on their own without a man’s protection, this patriarchal
strategy seeks primarily to satisfy the fantasies of men.

Women’s support and livelihoods

In
Oran, the local NGO Femmes Algeriennes
reclamants leurs droits (FARD) (Algerian Women Claiming their Rights), has
only been able to assist 10 Syrian women out of the 2,000 believed to have
arrived in the city. This is may be due to the restrictions
Algerian authorities inflict on civil society and political activism in
general. With the exception of the Red Crescent, there are particular restrictions
on the media and those addressing Syrian refugee issues.

Women
also do not always make themselves known to the authorities or NGOs, for fear
of being sent back to Syria. The UNHCR website states ‘no refugees are deported
for reasons of illegal entry or stay in the country’. However a particular
story of two Syrian women who have been condemned by a Judge to leave the
Algerian territory for having committed the offence of begging on the street,
and for having crossed illegally the Algerian/Tunisian border, begs to refute
this declaration. It highlights the gap between Algerian domestic laws and its
asylum policy.

Even those who arrive with some wealth and education are not above discrimination, they face a different set of barriers. The majority of women who I
spoke with had brought money and jewellery with them, and some had sold their
properties and transferred funds from Syria. Other sources from Oran’s
Universities reported the presence of highly skilled, professional and academic
Syrian females who have tried to either apply for jobs or for university in
Oran. This category of refugee women encounter the classical three barriers which
obstruct their counterparts worldwide. Firstly, the stereotype that all
refugees, women in particular, are illiterate, ‘victims’ and a ‘needy’ group; secondly,
the non-recognition
of their qualifications; and thirdly, the fact that their diplomas are not
recognised by the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education.

Childcare is also an issue
and those refugees with children of school age are in need of personal networks
to enrol their children in school. Although recently in September 2013 the
Ministry of National Education made it compulsory
for schools to facilitate the registration of Syrian refugees, many Syrian
children are still deprived of education. Some local schools require
certificates and many are unlikely to possess these due to having had to leave
the country with other priorities in mind. This puts more pressure on refugee
mothers, particularly if single.

Algeria’s own gendered
history

In its efforts to welcome
Syrian refugees, Algeria is in the midst of grappling with its own history of
gender inequality and violence. Although Algeria is considered
to be the ‘Arab spring’ exception, it is nonetheless the case that the country
is still suffering as a consequence of the ‘black decade’ of the 90s. Violence
against women increased
dramatically at the start of the 1990s internal Algerian conflict. Women
and children who fled from terrorist
attacks in surrounding villages around Oran during the 1990s are still
living in a precarious situation due to a lack of social housing, high levels
of unemployment and lack of social protection.

The arrival of Syrian women
with their families seems to have brought these issues to the surface: ‘Oran is
already surcharged with its own problems, we have so many outsiders who arrived
during the 1990s, we, the natives, don’t recognise the city anymore it’s so “dirty”.
Of course we want to keep our reputation of a welcoming city but it’s all about
energy and trust which we lost during the 1990s’, explains an indigenous
Oranese young woman who I met at Marche
Michelet, a market where the wealthy Oranese go for their shopping. ‘But’, she
also insisted, ‘we are Muslims and the Syrian are Muslims too, they are our
sisters and we are obliged to help them, I am shocked and feel ashamed to hear
about the young Syrian who was raped, but maybe it’s a rumour…’

The future of refugee
protection in Algeria

Let it be known that refugee
women are actors with a range of gendered coping strategies and solutions.
Feminist literature reveals refugee women’s resilience with some degree of
intactness, and I have argued elsewhere that many women are strengthened by the
inhumane conditions that they have had to endure during their journey to
asylum. Refugee women are often ready to re-acquire values and behaviour that
war and conflicts may have destroyed for them. Because of the wounds, the
physical and emotional plight that refugee women have had to undergo, they may
change previous behaviour and lifestyle, thus bringing new meaning to their
lives and to their host societies. Who would have heard of Madeleine
Albright had she not been offered the right support when she and her family
fled from Czechoslovakia
back in 1948?

Algeria has ratified the
1951 Refugee Convention as well as its 1967 Protocol. Many Palestinians and
Chileans who fled persecution and repression found sanctuary in Algeria during
the 1970s. More recently, and following the crisis in Mali and the on-going
Syrian tragedy, it has become an obligation for the Algerian government to
update its asylum policy and work closely with the UNHCR in developing and
implementing a national asylum framework which, we hope, will not overlook
gender, as is often the case. Algerian citizens, medical professionals, policy
makers, rights-advocates, and anyone with the will to provide support for
Syrian refugee women, needs to appreciate the strength of their gender identity,
their values, their political beliefs and their cultural context. Oran in particular, must do this in order to retrieve
its reputation of being the most hospitable and welcoming Algerian City.
Meanwhile, the case of the raped Syrian woman will remain unheard, simply classed as ‘a cynical rumour’.

Refugee Week: Women's Voices: To mark Refugee Week, from 16-22 June openDemocracy 50.50 presents a range of articles written by refugee women authors and refugee rights' activists around the world. All articles are taken from People on the Move, 50.50's migration, gender and social justice dialogue, edited by Jennifer Allsopp.

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